The Mummy: Book of the Dead Is Official as Brendan Fraser Returns to the Franchise
After years of fans asking whether Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and the gang could possibly be persuaded to raid another ancient tomb, Universal Pictures is finally taking audiences back to the world of Rick and Evelyn O’Connell. The next instalment now has an official title, The Mummy: Book of the Dead, ahead of its planned theatrical release on October 15, 2027.
The film will reunite a remarkable amount of talent from the earlier movies. Fraser is returning alongside Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Kevin J. O’Connor and Oded Fehr, bringing Rick O’Connell, Evelyn, Jonathan Carnahan, Beni Gabor and Ardeth Bay back into the franchise. Newcomers Michael Johnston and Numan Acar are also aboard, while directing duties belong to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, better known as Radio Silence.
The filmmakers previously helped relaunch Scream with the successful 2022 legacy sequel and followed that with Scream VI and the blood-soaked vampire movie Abigail. Exactly what they’ve planned for Book of the Dead remains secret, so the newly revealed title shouldn’t be treated as confirmation of any particular storyline or villain. With Radio Silence involved, however, it will be fascinating to see where they position the balance between horror, comedy and the enormous adventure spectacle that defined the original films.
And those original films are precisely why this particular resurrection has been requested for so long.
The Mummy arrived in 1999 under writer-director Stephen Sommers, taking a property historically associated with Universal’s classic monster movies and transforming it into something completely different. Rather than simply attempting another sombre horror film about a resurrected corpse, Sommers combined Egyptian mythology, supernatural horror, comedy, romance and the spirit of old-fashioned adventure serials.
Fraser starred as adventurer Rick O’Connell, with Weisz as librarian and aspiring Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan and Hannah as her wonderfully unreliable brother Jonathan. Their expedition to Hamunaptra accidentally resurrected Imhotep, played by Arnold Vosloo, an ancient priest condemned to the horrific Hom-Dai after his forbidden relationship with Anck-su-namun. The result was a film filled with flesh-eating scarabs, plagues, sandstorms, gunfights, undead priests and enough ancient curses to make staying home with a cup of tea seem enormously attractive.
The chemistry between Fraser and Weisz became as important as the spectacle. Rick was the swaggering adventurer who could shoot his way through almost anything, while Evelyn’s intelligence and enthusiasm drove much of the story. Add Jonathan, Ardeth Bay and even the spectacularly treacherous Beni, and Sommers had assembled a group audiences genuinely enjoyed spending time with.
Its success produced The Mummy Returns in 2001, which went considerably bigger. Rick and Evelyn were now married with a son, Alex, while Imhotep and Anck-su-namun returned as the story introduced Dwayne Johnson as the Scorpion King. The sequel increased virtually everything, from armies of Anubis warriors and enormous battles to more elaborate mythology and action sequences. It also launched The Scorpion King into his own spin-off series, although the CGI version of Johnson that appears during The Mummy Returns climax has spent the last quarter-century terrifying audiences for reasons nobody involved intended.
The third film, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, followed in 2008 and made significant changes. Rob Cohen replaced Sommers as director and Maria Bello took over the role of Evelyn from Weisz, while the action moved from Egypt to China. Jet Li played the resurrected Dragon Emperor, with Michelle Yeoh among the new cast. Fraser and Hannah returned, and an older Alex became more central to the adventure. The film expanded the franchise’s mythology beyond Egyptian mummies, but the absence of Weisz and the shift away from the chemistry and atmosphere of the first two films made it feel considerably different from the adventures that had established the series.
For years afterwards, fans continued hoping the original team might eventually receive another outing. Those calls became particularly noticeable as Fraser experienced a major career resurgence. His acclaimed performance in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2023, introducing him to another generation while generating an enormous wave of affection for an actor many audiences had grown up watching.
Fraser himself never seemed embarrassed by his Mummy past either, and the prospect of seeing him return as an older Rick O’Connell became increasingly appealing. Rather than pretending decades haven’t passed, a fourth adventure now has the opportunity to embrace them. Rick and Evelyn were already married parents in The Mummy Returns. Seeing where those characters are after all these years could give Book of the Dead something more substantial than simple nostalgia.
Universal previously attempted a very different resurrection of The Mummy in 2017, with Tom Cruise starring opposite Sofia Boutella. The film was intended to launch the studio’s ambitious Dark Universe, which had plans involving Russell Crowe’s Dr Jekyll, Javier Bardem’s Frankenstein’s Monster and Johnny Depp’s Invisible Man. Those plans collapsed after The Mummy failed to provide the foundation Universal wanted.
That makes Book of the Dead an intriguing reversal. Rather than building another cinematic universe around The Mummy, Universal is returning to the incarnation audiences have spent years asking to see again.
There is still plenty we don’t know. No detailed plot has been announced, and the significance of the Book of the Dead title remains to be revealed. But Fraser, Weisz, Hannah, O’Connor and Fehr being reunited is already enough to make this feel considerably closer to the Mummy comeback fans imagined.
Rick O’Connell is heading back into the mummy business. Considering what happened the first three times, you’d think the man would have learned to leave ancient books exactly where he found them.
